Friday, September 11, 2009

what we do when fall arrives

It feels like fall. Kids are back in school. The temperature is more comfortable. The sunlight seems to have turned a little golden around the edges. We ingest copious amounts of apples, tomatoes and squash. Orb weaver spiders set up their posts in a short lived attempt to find food before the weather gets too cold. (Why is it only in the Autumn that they do this? And why is it always in a spot that you least expect? It seems that their locale of choice is head height in the doorway causing your face to not only be encased in this sticky dessicated bug-filled net but forces you to search wildly and spasmodically for the yet unseen dweller of the web upon your body...and I am not even afraid of spiders).I love the rest and calmness that a Autumn afternoon allows. And even though it is technically still Summer, September just seems to slow in someways that August doesn't.I love puttering around in the yard. Tidying. Harvesting. Visiting my girls.

(Isn't Lucy the best mama chicken ever??) Poop scooping. Finding whatever needs doing and doing it.I can't say that many days are like this but when they are, they are delicious.The kids and I found ourselves having just such a day yesterday. They played as I puttered.

As I stacked wood, they floated pieces of bark in the wheelbarrow that had filled with rain water. Eventually, I grabbed Liv's toolbox that she and Jeff had made,

another hammer or two and a few nails and we set to work together building boats from unused pieces of 2X4s. We hammered long nails for masts, and small nails for ropes to tie to. We coloured the sides with waterproof marker. Then we sailed our elaborate little vessels in our little sea.

7 comments:

I followed you link from Matt, Liz, Madeline, I've become a regular there. I myself am going thru hard times, I am very sick, paralysed, I'm stuck in bed all the time and to top it I can't remember the last couple of yrs of my life. I'm dealing with it and not giving up. Though we're in very different boats I still feel your pain and it may not happen overnight but you will survive this.. Keep up the good work in raising you kids, they're cute. My own site is www.souldose.com , feel free to check me. Will bookmark you... Looking forward to another post.. Later

When I was a child I used to play with the poor orb weaver spiders. I would sweep around their webs until I had them hanging by a thread. And then I would gather the silk quickly in my fingers so that as they dropped I kept up. I feel sort of sorry for them now, although like you I find they build webs in bad places and they probably wouldn't have lasted anyway.

Oh, and this game totally freaked out my poor mother who is terrified of spiders. So even if I didn't do lasting harm to the bugs, I certainly did my mom no favours.

Those spiders freak me out. I'm not a spider lover. And as I ran under a trellis a few years ago trying to avoid one it played this disappearing game on me and I went frantic searching my body for it thinking it had bungee dropped down on me. Not nice.

Anyhoo....I still think you are one of the best Mamas around. Making little boats with your kids! You rule in my book Jackie :o)

What a great day, Jackie! I think I'll have one like it today in the September, almost fall, sunshine. You've inspired me to help the boys repair their wooden boats that are sitting in the garage. I love the tool box that Jeff and Olivia made! My weekend is turning out just like I'd hoped, so far. Tears are healing.

Ha - I SO do the spider flail. Between that and my duck, run, swat and scream to get wasps away, I make for quite the entertainment in the back yard.

I'm not scared of most spiders either, just don't want them on me - but there are a few that freak me out. I feel bad when I have to wreck a web though, as they are so beautiful and would be a lot of work, but they always seem to build them right across the doors to my sheds and as much as I'd like to, I can't forgo poop scooping and lawn mowing for the sake of a web.

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About Me

A few musings of a homeschooling, crafting, neurotic, organic loving and, most of all, kiddo adoring mommy...I've now become a widow. My best friend and husband died of a pulmonary embolism on March 25th, 2008. This blog has now become a place for me to mentally unload and try to figure out how to do this and who I am without him.